TOURISM PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT What is tourism product development? We can give you a long
Product Development Resource Team from the Georgia Department
and technical definition, but in essence – tourism product devel-
of Economic Development. They spent two days in Toccoa analyzing
opment is a cataloging of possible tourism resources in our com-
what we have to offer, what we could offer, and how to promote our
munity and promoting them to the general public. When we say,
community. They returned in August of 2017 to report on their find-
“tourism product development,” we are referring to things like the
ings. But they didn’t just leave.
Currahee Military Museum or Lake Toccoa, or even things like the installation of new wayfinding signage and a butterfly garden.
A visit from a Resource Team means that a community is eligible to receive grant funding focused on the development of tourism
Tourism products are anything in our community that promote it in a tangible way.
resources. Because of their visit, the City of Toccoa received grant funding to construct a Railway Viewing Platform, which was completed in May 2018, and was recently awarded a grant to complete
How do we know what is considered a tourism product? Well,
Phase II of our Downtown Wayfinding Signage.
many of our tourism resources are obvious. Most people will say Toccoa Falls or Camp Toccoa at Currahee first, perhaps, but Toc-
A report is worthless if it collects dust on a shelf.
coa is special in that it has received a visit from a group of people who specifically catalog tourism resources in a community.
“Rest assured that we will continue to analyze this report and promote our community through it.”
In March of 2017, the City of Toccoa received a visit from a Tourism
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